CNN Guest Suggest the Lesson from COVID Could Help Prevent Seasonal Flue

EXCERPT:

OFFIT: “I mean, typically, every year between 150 and 200 children die of influenza. This year, so far, one child has died of influenza. On Friday, March 5th, our FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee is going to meet to discuss what flu strains we are going to pick to be in next year’s flu vaccine. The way we do that is we figure out what flu strains have been circulating in places like Australia or South America, which sort of predicts what strains are likely to come into our country. There’s been so little flu in those two areas, I think it’s going to be hard for us to try to figure out what flu strains to pick. But you’re right, if we mask and social distance every winter, we will see a dramatic reduction in flu, which usually causes hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and tens of thousands of deaths. I wonder whether that will be the lesson from this.”